Springer Science & Business Media SA (‘Springer’) was a publisher of academic journals and books. Springer was formed through the acquisitions and subsequent merger of two businesses: Kluwer Academic Publishing, a publisher of academic journals, primarily in Science and Technology; and BertelsmannSpringer, one of the top five publishers of academic journals in the science, technical and medical fields and the leading business-to-business publisher in Germany. The combined company published 1,200 journal titles and 4,000 book titles annually.